1 year with the AirPods Pro

I've been using the airports pro for a year and I've learned a lot about these wireless earbuds. So one year on, am I still using them and what do I think of them now? [MUSIC] To me, the athletes pro are really the jack of all trades when it comes to wireless earbuds. They're great vehicles, that balance to listening to music, and they perform really well, especially if you're already in the apple ecosystem. So in this long term review I wanna cover everything from the all important sound quality to battery life. And how they're holding up now a year later, as well as the extra features that weren't originally available at the time of release. So let's talk about sound quality. One of my favorite things to talk about when it comes to wireless earbuds and to me it's probably the most important part of any review. Now the Airpods Pro, if you've also been using them over the past little while, you probably realize that they have failing neutral sound profile then not too overwhelming on anything from troubles to bass. If anything, the bass is not quite as punchy as some other wireless earbuds out there. Now this makes them really balanced for doing things like jumping between coals and listening to music. But overall when I'm listening to music, I do like to tweak the sound profile a little bit in an equalizer. Now unfortunately, the airports per don't have An equalizer that comes with the actual headphones themselves, either in the control center or anything like that. So what I usually do is open up an app like Spotify or Apple Music for example and then And tweak the equalizer to give it just a little bit more punch. I like a little bit more bass in my music especially. So that's how I've decided to get a little bit more out of the sound of the air pods, more so than the default sound settings. I've also been experimenting with an app called sound ID and this one is actually tailored to your preferences and also a bit of a hearing test depending on what you can actually here to change the sound profile accordingly? It does make the Airpods sound a little bit more dynamic overall, and I've been primarily using that app when I've been listening on a Now the active noise cancellation on the airport's PR has always been really, really good and back into time when I was doing a lot more traveling say on planes for example. I really appreciated having active noise cancellation in such a small package as well and it was fairly effective. And I really did find it do a great job of blocking out the sounds of the external world. Now being at home, I haven't really been able to use ANC as much as I was previously in my commuting and traveling life, but I still do find it really valuable and very effective when I really need to focus. You might remember I did a video a three months on with the Airpods Pro, 3 months after they came I said this, transparency might I think is one of those things that you're either gonna really love and use it all the time and I'm in the camp that I used it once or twice and I just found it kind of disorienting because the microphone is picking up the external sound to bring it in. I think it's useful if you're in this situation. If you are a person that never wants to take phase out, you can just press and hold and activate transparency mode whenever you need it, but. I like to take them out of my ears because sometimes after an extended use, they're not that comfortable for me. Honestly, I feel like they you know this Billy Eilish Vanity Fair videos but she looks back at what she said a year ago she just cringes That is me right now watching that clip because I completely disagree with what I said then. And funnily enough, it kind of took a pandemic for me to realize how valuable transparency mode was working from home really needing to hear my surroundings. The transparency mode on the airports Pro is excellent, and I really wish that I appreciated it earlier, but look better late than never. [MUSIC] One of the other real surprises was the addition of spatial audio to the AirPods pro on the release of iOS 14. Now this is compatible with video apps. Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Max, Apple TV, plus of course watching videos that have surround sound in hearing your ears. You can also toggle it off a setting in the control center so you can actually hear what it sounds like on or off. It does make a pretty significant difference when you are doing something like watching a movie, particularly something that Kind of dialogue slash action heavy I really noticed the difference. And I thought it was a really cool addition, especially the fact that we didn't know that this feature was there at the time of release a year ago, so it's a nice extra bonus. That said, I still don't think the AirPods Pro even one year later Are the best sounding wireless earbuds out there. I definitely wanted to get the opinion of our chief headphone reviewer, David Carnoy to see what he thinks and where the airpods stand in relation to all of the competition. So you've been using the airpods pro as long as I have for about a year. So I wanna know Are you still using them regularly? I do and I think in terms of the big thing for me is their design. I obviously use a lot of two wireless earbuds. I also have done a slight modification to the AirPods pro I did get some foam tips and that can make a difference for some people that helps with those sound. Noise Canceling and everything You got him You got him too. I got them too. I only just came over to I guess the dark side literally with the with the foam tips too because I had pretty much exactly the same problem is constantly. Pulling out when I was doing anything remotely active so this does provide a slightly better steal my ears. So I have very small ear canals, are you on the opposite end of the spectrum? Do you need the largest sort of tips? Yes, I have weird ears I've been told. [LAUGH] But I do need the, I usually need the biggest tips, XL if possible. So that the some people with the AirPods Pro actually have one ear with the medium tip, one year with the large tip. So it's always better to get the tighter seal. How do you think the AirPods Pro compare now given the current crop of true wireless earbuds that have come out, like ones from Bose and Sennheiser, for example. I mean, I think the AirPods were always Decent sounding, to Al's ear buds. They they're open sounding. They're not particularly detailed or particularly great dividend definition in the bass but they're good sounding and for a lot of people, that's fine. If you want to step up to the next level, you really have to go with something like the Sennheiser. I have I had those here as well. Gave these an editor's choice and they do sound better and more recently, there's the Bose and the sound really good too. They have just, you know a lot more bigger sound, clear all those things and they just have they have bigger drivers and You can only do so much with what you have in that design of the AirPods pro and that really again is one of the most appealing parts of them is how light they are. And for a lot of people, they sound good enough the noise cancelling is good enough. So they're they're fine for a lot of people. Want that extra bit of noise canceling the Bose definitely have the best noise cancelling right now. How much of a difference did you find that spatial audio made to your listening experience? It's anything that has it can actually convert some stereo tracks to. It's better for 5.1 surround or better even if it's at most. I think it's a strange sensation because it feels like if you have your phone in front of you, it feels like the audio is really in front of you and it just gives a different feel to the audio. I mean it is tricking your ears into making his virtual surround sound, isn't gonna be as good as a real true home theaters around. But it's it's definitely something especially when you first experienced sounds really cool. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] The other addition that I really appreciate, is quick switching between different Apple devices that are all signed into the same iCloud or Apple ID. It's actually pretty useful when I'm swapping between say computer, and phone or phone. Tablet and so on. And those I also really liked the iOS 14 update is the battery widget so I can quickly just see at a glance the battery level of the airport's Pro. So let's talk about battery life. I think one year later after having used them. I think that's probably the area in which I'm probably the most sad about. They don't quite hit the same. a half to almost five hours of listening time that I was getting out of them using active noise cancellation. Now again later, I'm getting maybe three and half at most, usually around three hours of listening time on average. This sort of battery issue is pretty standard across wireless earbuds, I just still They will give me the same life as they were straight out of the box. But everything else has been really really good about using the inputs pro over an extended period of time. For example, the durability and build performance I have zero complaints about I've dropped these numerous times. They sometimes fall out of my ears, especially when I'm. Flicking my hair back, or changing clothes, or even when I had the silicon tips on and they weren't creating the tightest seal. They did often fall out and I'm dropping them on the ground continuously. They still work fine to this day. So I would love to hear your experiences, if yours have been as durable as mine have been as well. I'm super excited to see what the rumored AirPods Studio headphones Are going to be like and maybe potentially if some extra features will trickle down to the AirPods Pro, namely a first party equalizer. Please, I would love that so much. [MUSIC] Thanks for watching. I hope this video has been useful for you in working out How the AirPods Pro performed, you know long term ongoing basis. If you have thoughts about your own AirPods Pro or any questions for me that I didn't answer, let me know in the comments below. See ya